A Cigarette for Bonita

Carlos, Reggie, and I were sitting eating breakfast outside the High Desert Market. Bonita asked Carlos for a cigarette in Spanish. She offered to pay Carlos for the cigarette. [Interesting offer since it was against the policy of High Desert Market to smoke there.]

Carlos said that he could only roll them satisfactorily for his own smoking. Reggie has no such restriction.

He took Carlos’ tobacco pouch, extracted the appropriate amount of tobacco, and used one of his own cigarette papers. Then he rolled a perfect cigarette, mumbling in Spanish as he rolled.

He finished rolling the cigarette, but stopped short of licking the cigarette. Then he handed the cigarette to Bonita.

Bonita thanked him, and left with the cigarette. Reggie returned to his seat with a smile.

Request to Use Cell Phone

Cheri has been in the process of moving her studio to a different location. The path to the studio is a multi-step stairway.

I was walking up the steps to see how Cheri was doing. I stopped to rest along the way. Across the street from where I was sitting a woman walked out of her house. She was carrying what looked to be a bunch of electronics.

She asked me if she could use my cell phone. I asked her why she didn’t use her own cell phone. She changed the subject; she asked whether the property that I was resting on belonged to me. I said no but it was half-way to my destination. As if on cue Cheri called me on her cell phone.

At this point the woman returned to her side of the street, and made a call with her cell phone (using her own phone!). Then she returned into her house, and I continued up the path. Meanwhile the woman was weeping in the house.

Baseball and the Stock Exchange

On a recent weekend the Copper Cities Classic was held in Bisbee. The Copper Cities Classic is a tournament of Vintage baseball teams.

On the Saturday night there was a couple of blues acts at the Stock Exchange* in conjunction with the baseball events. I went to the Stock Exchange for a while. I talked to one of the guys who told me that a couple of their players were injured.

The Stock Exchange has a table shuffleboard but the bar was too full for it to be used that evening. Somebody had propped a crutch against the table shuffleboard.

With all the people in the bar that evening, it was almost inevitable that the crutch would fall….several times.

Somebody suggested that I just put the crutch under the table shuffleboard. It just so happened that the crutch belonged to Clint, and somehow I realized this.

At a break in the noise I introduced myself to Clint. He looked at me strangely. Obviously in context he initially thought that this has a baseball connection.

Then it clicked. He said, “Pilates”. I nodded and as soon as I was about to say something the music resumed.


* The Stock Exchange is a bar that used to be a stock exchange.